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GH3 electronic shutter mode

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Fredrik Glckner

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It is probably well known already that the electronic shutter mode of the GH3 produces heavy rolling shutter artefacts, much more than when using video. Using a LEGO Technic setup with a rotating propeller, I measured the speed of the rolling electronic shutter, and found that it takes about 1/10s to read the whole sensor.

This is consistent with what I read in an interview with some Panasonic engineers.

If you could use a flash during the electronic shutter mode, this would mean that the flash sync speed would have been 1/10s. Which is, of course, extremely poor. Which is why the flash cannot be used in this mode.

Read more details about my test here:

http://m43photo.blogspot.com/2012/12/gh3-electronic-shutter.html

I still find the mode useful, and use it a lot.
 
In spite of its limitations, it's still better to have the option than not.
 
What makes you think it is slower in stills mode than in video mode? I have not seen anything that would indicate that is true.
 
Fredrik Glckner said:
Fredrik Glckner wrote:

It is probably well known already that the electronic shutter mode of the GH3 produces heavy rolling shutter artefacts, much more than when using video. Using a LEGO Technic setup with a rotating propeller, I measured the speed of the rolling electronic shutter, and found that it takes about 1/10s to read the whole sensor.

This is consistent with what I read in an interview with some Panasonic engineers.

If you could use a flash during the electronic shutter mode, this would mean that the flash sync speed would have been 1/10s. Which is, of course, extremely poor. Which is why the flash cannot be used in this mode.

Read more details about my test here:

http://m43photo.blogspot.com/2012/12/gh3-electronic-shutter.html

I still find the mode useful, and use it a lot.
Click to expand...
Thanks for sharing them. :)
 
mpgxsvcd said:
mpgxsvcd wrote:

What makes you think it is slower in stills mode than in video mode? I have not seen anything that would indicate that is true.
Click to expand...
I've read in several places now that it takes 1/10 of a second to capture a full still image in electronic shutter mode, reading out all the pixel rows one at a time from top to bottom. Meanwhile, video at 60P obviously takes no more than 1/60 of a second to capture a single frame. Of course the still has a lot more pixels in it than the video frame does, which likely accounts for why they operate at different speeds.


What that means is that if you're panning horizontally while taking pictures, you're going to get a much stronger slant on vertical lines in still mode than in video mode. That can actually be used to creative advantage for the right subject if you do a little planning.
 
Sean Nelson said:
Sean Nelson wrote:
Sean Nelson said:
mpgxsvcd wrote:

What makes you think it is slower in stills mode than in video mode? I have not seen anything that would indicate that is true.
Click to expand...
I've read in several places now that it takes 1/10 of a second to capture a full still image in electronic shutter mode, reading out all the pixel rows one at a time from top to bottom. Meanwhile, video at 60P obviously takes no more than 1/60 of a second to capture a single frame. Of course the still has a lot more pixels in it than the video frame does, which likely accounts for why they operate at different speeds.

What that means is that if you're panning horizontally while taking pictures, you're going to get a much stronger slant on vertical lines in still mode than in video mode. That can actually be used to creative advantage for the right subject if you do a little planning.
Click to expand...
I will test this. I haven't noticed that the still slant is a different angle than the video slant. However, I haven't specifically tested it yet.
 
Fredrik Glckner said:
Fredrik Glckner wrote:

It is probably well known already that the electronic shutter mode of the GH3 produces heavy rolling shutter artefacts, much more than when using video. Using a LEGO Technic setup with a rotating propeller, I measured the speed of the rolling electronic shutter, and found that it takes about 1/10s to read the whole sensor.

This is consistent with what I read in an interview with some Panasonic engineers.

If you could use a flash during the electronic shutter mode, this would mean that the flash sync speed would have been 1/10s. Which is, of course, extremely poor. Which is why the flash cannot be used in this mode.

Read more details about my test here:

http://m43photo.blogspot.com/2012/12/gh3-electronic-shutter.html


I still find the mode useful, and use it a lot.
Click to expand...
That's really interesting, Fredrik, thanks. It's not something I'm too bothered about - though I did some experiments when I got my first Leica (IIIc) to get the Lartigue effect!

However looking at your last photo, I've come to the conclusion that one should use the GH3 upside down!


Mike
 
Michael J Davis said:
Michael J Davis wrote:
However looking at your last photo, I've come to the conclusion that one should use the GH3 upside down!
Mike

--
Mike Davis
Photographing the public for over 50 years
www.flickr.com/photos/watchman
Click to expand...
Yes, it is possible to recreate the Lartigue effect using the GH3 camera. You can do it by holding the camera upside down, or by photographing a car driving from the right to the left.

Here is one example I made myself:

P1000269.JPG


And this is not even a racing car! Had it driven fast, the effect would have been more pronounced.
 
Last edited:
Hi Fred, good article, I was thinking of measuring the acquisition speed, well done! I just think your article leaves the wrong impression, when ever possible the electronic shutter is actually better, as it avoids shutter shock, which of course also depends on conditions, so you might want to show some positive effects of the e shutter, which is also my default, often limited by subjects movement and ISO (limited to 1600) on my G5, se an example below:




one row is e shutter, one mechanical at 200mm handheld, guess which is which....



JL
 
Sean Nelson said:
Sean Nelson wrote:
Sean Nelson said:
mpgxsvcd wrote:

What makes you think it is slower in stills mode than in video mode? I have not seen anything that would indicate that is true.
Click to expand...
I've read in several places now that it takes 1/10 of a second to capture a full still image in electronic shutter mode, reading out all the pixel rows one at a time from top to bottom. Meanwhile, video at 60P obviously takes no more than 1/60 of a second to capture a single frame. Of course the still has a lot more pixels in it than the video frame does, which likely accounts for why they operate at different speeds.

What that means is that if you're panning horizontally while taking pictures, you're going to get a much stronger slant on vertical lines in still mode than in video mode. That can actually be used to creative advantage for the right subject if you do a little planning.
Click to expand...
I think there is two effects to look at, you can get 1/2000 exposures in eshutter (I think) but it still takes 1/10 to read the whole sensor...video only uses a smaller postion of the sensor (or does it bin pixels?) I guess this is why you can use electronic tele converter without any loss of quality. So I guess it takes less time to read the "video portion" of the sensor than the whole sensor. This is also why smaller sensor cameras do not have such a pronounced rolling shutter effect, all things equal it should increase with the sensor size used.

JL
 
Fredrik Glckner said:
Fredrik Glckner wrote:

It is probably well known already that the electronic shutter mode of the GH3 produces heavy rolling shutter artefacts, much more than when using video. Using a LEGO Technic setup with a rotating propeller, I measured the speed of the rolling electronic shutter, and found that it takes about 1/10s to read the whole sensor.

This is consistent with what I read in an interview with some Panasonic engineers.

If you could use a flash during the electronic shutter mode, this would mean that the flash sync speed would have been 1/10s. Which is, of course, extremely poor. Which is why the flash cannot be used in this mode.

Read more details about my test here:

http://m43photo.blogspot.com/2012/12/gh3-electronic-shutter.html


I still find the mode useful, and use it a lot.
Click to expand...
...that electronic shutter is the future of mirror-less, and that sensor manufacturers will be putting a lot of effort into improving that speed to at least what the current mechanical shutters are capable of.
 
grumpyolderman said:
grumpyolderman wrote:
video only uses a smaller postion of the sensor (or does it bin pixels?) I guess this is why you can use electronic tele converter without any loss of quality. So I guess it takes less time to read the "video portion" of the sensor than the whole sensor.
Click to expand...
Yes, you are right. Panasonic engineers have said in an interview that pixels are binned for video readout. As I understood the article, two by two pixel groups are binned into one, but I think the interview was not well translated to English, so I might have misunderstood them. The actual binning algorithm might be confidential, also.

In this test, I demonstrate that the rolling shutter effect of the GH3 is somewhat less than that of the GH2 when recording video:

http://m43photo.blogspot.com/2012/12/gh3-has-less-rolling-shutter-artifacts.html

In my opinion, the rolling shutter effect during video recording is now very small, and only noticeable when you deliberate provoke the effect. I.e., when panning heavily sideways.
 
Barugon said:
dotborg wrote:
Barugon said:
Fredrik Glckner wrote:

It is probably well known already that the electronic shutter mode of the GH3 produces heavy rolling shutter artefacts, much more than when using video. Using a LEGO Technic setup with a rotating propeller, I measured the speed of the rolling electronic shutter, and found that it takes about 1/10s to read the whole sensor.

This is consistent with what I read in an interview with some Panasonic engineers.

If you could use a flash during the electronic shutter mode, this would mean that the flash sync speed would have been 1/10s. Which is, of course, extremely poor. Which is why the flash cannot be used in this mode.

Read more details about my test here:

http://m43photo.blogspot.com/2012/12/gh3-electronic-shutter.html

I still find the mode useful, and use it a lot.
Click to expand...
...that electronic shutter is the future of mirror-less, and that sensor manufacturers will be putting a lot of effort into improving that speed to at least what the current mechanical shutters are capable of.
Click to expand...
I agree that a global shutter is the holy grail for all mirrorless cameras, and I believe we'll see it in the next five years. It already exists in some higher end video cameras.
 
amtberg said:
amtberg wrote:
I agree that a global shutter is the holy grail for all mirrorless cameras, and I believe we'll see it in the next five years. It already exists in some higher end video cameras.
Click to expand...
I think people may not understand just how different a "global shutter" is from the kind of "electronic shutter" that's used in the GH3.

The GH3's "electronic" shutter operates by processing rows of pixels, starting at the top row and moving downwards across the face of the sensor. It first "resets" the pixels to dump the electron charges accumulated by the photons that struck the photosites, then waits for the selected shutter speed time to expire (i.e., 1/200th of a second), then reads out the charge accumulated in the photosites. The reason is has to process the rows vertically over a relatively long amount of time (1/10 of a second) is that there's a maximum readout speed for the sensor, and the camera has to make sure that no more than 1/200th of a second (in this example) elapses between the time any one photosite was "reset" and its charge was read out.

A "Global" shutter is much different in that you don't have to read out the data for a photosite 1/200th of a second after it was reset. The camera can signal the sensor to "reset" all of its photosites, wait 1/200th of a second, then then signal the sensor to "remember" the charge level on all the photosites. All the photosites respond at the same time. Each photosite "remembers" its charge by transferring it to a storage area immediately adjacent to the photon well. That allows the "brightness" of the pixel during the exposure interval to be stored separately from the photosite even though light continues to fall on it. Once that's done, the camera can then read the data from all the photosite storage areas at a relatively leisurely pace.

A "Global" shutter requires chip area for the storage area that "remembers" the charge captured during the exposure, which in turn means less area for the photosite itself. Therefore, sensors with global shutters aren't as sensitive as conventional sensors.

A strategy to avoid this problem is to use a "three-dimensional" fabrication technique where the charge is stored "underneath" the light well, but there may be some technical issues with that and even if it could be solved it would mean a lot more fabrication steps and therefore a considerably more expensive sensor.

Camera manufacturers have been working on this for quite some time and nobody's come up with a solution they think is acceptable yet. I've no doubt it will arrive at some point, but it's a challenging problem that's obviously not easy to solve.
 
I have a sneaking (and entirely baseless) suspicion that this is the reason Panasonic probably used a Sony sensor in the GH3; they are devoting most of their R&D to developing a global shutter.
 
Thanks for this, Fredrik!!




This is by far the most useful information I have found on the GH3 / G5 electronic shutter!




Cheers,

Hans



Fredrik Glckner said:
Fredrik Glckner wrote:

It is probably well known already that the electronic shutter mode of the GH3 produces heavy rolling shutter artefacts, much more than when using video. Using a LEGO Technic setup with a rotating propeller, I measured the speed of the rolling electronic shutter, and found that it takes about 1/10s to read the whole sensor.

This is consistent with what I read in an interview with some Panasonic engineers.

If you could use a flash during the electronic shutter mode, this would mean that the flash sync speed would have been 1/10s. Which is, of course, extremely poor. Which is why the flash cannot be used in this mode.

Read more details about my test here:

http://m43photo.blogspot.com/2012/12/gh3-electronic-shutter.html


I still find the mode useful, and use it a lot.
Click to expand...
 
Fredrik Glckner said:
Fredrik Glckner wrote:
Fredrik Glckner said:
Michael J Davis wrote:
However looking at your last photo, I've come to the conclusion that one should use the GH3 upside down!
Mike

--
Mike Davis
Photographing the public for over 50 years
www.flickr.com/photos/watchman
Click to expand...
Yes, it is possible to recreate the Lartigue effect using the GH3 camera. You can do it by holding the camera upside down, or by photographing a car driving from the right to the left.

Here is one example I made myself:

P1000269.JPG


And this is not even a racing car! Had it driven fast, the effect would have been more pronounced.
Click to expand...
Ah no! You misunderstand! The Lartigue effect has the car leaning 'forwards' the above example (as in your article) leans backwards - hence my suggestion that the camera is 'upside down'!! :-)


Mike


--
Mike Davis
Photographing the public for over 50 years
www.flickr.com/photos/watchman
 
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